[llamaorama]

Residential density may be less useful as a way of evaluating transit need these days.

Dense areas tend to have higher incomes and people who are willing to pay for parking, work from home now or could in the future, and who make heavy use of delivery services and ridesharing to make trips that 10 years ago would be in transit.

In Dallas, rail adjacent TOD has not increased ridership while the most demand is in less dense low income areas. The people who use transit are getting on buses in aging 1960s era sprawlburbs, and transferring to a train to go to the downtown community college campus (that’s going to close eventually) or to another bus to some McDonald’s to start their shift. The white collar transit rider went the way of cat videos, bacon mayo, hipster glasses and 1337. Chicago is obviously different but trends like this tend to converge in time.